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The perfect pitch is our dream—the sweet spot of concise, precise, informative, and engaging. How to achieve it without being too short or too long?… Or unclear and messy?
Sadly, there is no calculator or AI wonder-tool to determine the exact amount of words and characters you’ll need to successfully present your product or service. But there’s a very efficient guideline you should follow when outlining your sales page:
The length depends on the complexity and cost of the product/service.
Remember: the more complex or expensive the product, the more explanation, education, and persuasion you need.
Think about it. If you are buying a 1$ product, you do not need any convincing. You just grab it! It is simple and cheap.
What about a $300 product? It doesn’t require weeks of convincing, but you still need enough information to justify the expense to yourself, your spouse, or your boss.
On the other hand, you’ll spend weeks or sometimes even months researching, reading, and comparing when it comes to pricier or more complicated items, like a car or a new insurance policy.
A short(er) copy comes in handy if you’re already a huge brand name. Also, if you sell a well-known and frequently used product. Or if there is no huge competition on the market.
A long(er) copy is more common these days, and there’s a good reason for that. Usually, you need a substantial amount of words to answer some of the most important questions:
– WHAT do you provide for your reader?
– HOW will it benefit the reader?
– WHY should the reader buy from you?
A long(er) sales page is highly required when:
– people aren’t aware of your company,
– people don’t know anything about your product,
– the product is expensive or complicated,
– you need to explain some of your additional offers, or
– when you fight for attention with other businesses.
It’s crucial to be transparent with the potential customer and to evoke trust, therefor the sales page should be full of carefully curated text. Especially when people make big life decisions, decide on style choices, change habits, or even their mindset … Rule of thumb is: if you expect a higher level of commitment from the reader – the more paragraphs, the better.
But here is another thing to consider: You can not determine which copy is the best only by looking at its length.
The best sales page copy is the one that sells. Obviously. And it can only sell if it is easy to read. It needs to pull the readers in! Then they find themselves reading sentence after sentence, without skipping much. The best sales page is well-structured and designed, it gives clear information and does not confuse the soon-to-be-customers. The more they read, the more you can form some sort of relationship with them because they already feel invested.
Here are some general rules for readability, that you can easily apply in your writing process.
5 TIPS FOR READABILITY:
– large font size (minimum 16px);
– short lines (40–80 characters per line);
– new paragraph every 3–4 bars;
– use lists, quotes, and tables—mix it up;
– sub-headlines every 2–3 paragraphs;
– NO unnecessary big words.
Rachel Ciervo, a website copywriter for service businesses, wrote on LinkedIn her thoughts on how to write a good list:
Source: LinkedIn
Andrew Cortez shared a neat idea of using fewer words when writing a long-style copy. Sometimes there is just too much information to pass on and the text quickly becomes too long. This tip shows you how to please your word count without compromising the facts or the value of your copy.
Source: LinkedIn
What are the contractions?
– it is – it’s
– we are – we’re
– I will – I’ll
– does not – doesn’t
And so on … But to be honest, some occasions just aren’t appropriate for contractions, so be cautious about where and when will you use this trick. Focus on the meaning of the words instead, choose the ones, that are the most telling and definite. Tools like Grammarly, Readable, and Hemingway can help you greatly in boosting readability.
When deciding about the length of your sales page, think about your product/service. Is it expensive? Is it complicated? Are people already familiar with the basic principles of your product?
The copy needs to be long enough to capture much-needed information, the values of your product, and the credibility of your offer. But at the same time, it needs to be clear and short enough not to confuse the potential customer and to keep their attention and interest. Use tips for readability to keep text flowing, because readability is (almost) everything. Success doesn’t depend on the length of the sales page. People will only read it if the text is concise, precise, and engaging.
An even shorter summary:
There is no too long or too-short sales page – there is just the effective one and the forgettable one.
Mojca is an expert in transforming words into gold - or as she likes to call it, Conversion Copywriting at ADGY!
